First published in 2014 in Great Britain by
Barrington Stoke Ltd
18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP
www.barringtonstoke.co.uk
Text ÂŠ 2014 Sally Nicholls
The moral right of Sally Nicholls to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the
written permission of the publisher
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library upon request
ISBN: 978-1-78112-313-3
Printed in China by Leo

Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Before We Begin

1

Lost

2

The Way Home

7

Lyn

13

Truth or Dare

19

Best Friends

26

Loneliness

31

Hurt

35

You're Not Real

42

Alone

49

Fear

52

Found

59

1. Before We Begin
So, look.
This story is going to sound strange. I can’t
help that. I can only tell you what happened.
This is the story of how, when I was 14, I met
a woman who’d known me for 20 years.
It’s the story of how I lost one friend and
found another.
It’s the story of how I found a home.
Are you ready?
Let’s begin.
1

2. Lost
The story begins with a horrible day. That
wasn’t unusual. I hated school. I’d been at my
new school for two months, and I still hated it.
All of the other kids had been there for years.
They had people to sit with, and people to be
partners with, and people to hang out with at
break. I had no one.
I knew I should try to make friends, but I
couldn’t be bothered. There was no point – I’d be
moving on soon. I was 14, and this was my third
secondary school. I was in foster care – and I
kept having to move. I’d lived in five different
homes so far, in four different towns. You’d think
2

Sally Nicholls
someone might want to keep me, but no one ever
did.
It was better if I didn’t make friends. It would
make it easier when I had to go.
The reasons my day was so horrible were:
1.

Catherine and Jade, who sat behind me in
Maths and French. And were complete cows.
And who thought it was funny to take the piss
out of my shoes, and my bag, and my coat,
and my hair, and anything else they could
think of. It wasn’t funny. It was pathetic.

2.

Lunch. Or rather, the fact I didn’t have
anyone to sit with at lunch. It was like
there was this arrow pointing at my head,
with LOSER written on it. I wished I had the
willpower to be anorexic. It would have made
lunchtimes a lot easier.

3.

Homework. Homework and me didn’t get on.
Homework thought I didn’t put enough effort
into our relationship and I thought homework
always asked too much from me. Probably
we were both right. Homework was another
3

Shadow Girl
thing I couldn’t be bothered with. It meant I
got put in detention a lot, but I didn’t care. I
would rather be in detention than stuck on
my own with no one to talk to.
4.

The school bus. The school bus was the worst
bit of my whole day. I hated it. It was full of
loud, silly boys and loud, silly girls. Kids were
always throwing things or shouting things
or breaking things. The bus driver just sat
at the front and pretended he couldn’t hear.
You could have murdered someone and he
wouldn’t have stopped. He wouldn’t even
have made you clean up the blood.

When I got on the bus that day, the boys were in
a silly mood.
“Clare!” they yelled when they saw me.
“Hey, Clare, will you be my girlfriend?”
“Is that your granny’s coat, Clare?”
“Who cut your hair, Clare – a werewolf?”
Giggle, giggle, giggle.

4

Sally Nicholls
“Do you go to a werewolf hairdresser, Clare?
Awooo!”
And all the boys started making werewolf
noises. The bus driver didn’t even look round.
“Cla-are! I’m talking to you!”
So, you know how sometimes you just lose it?
I lost it.
“Shut up!” I said. I grabbed the biggest boy
and slammed him into the side of the bus. The
other kids went, “Ooooh!”
“Oooh, Clare!”
“Fight!”
“Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”
I guess I was wrong about that bus driver. He
let those boys yell stuff at me for two months.
But the one time I did something about it?
He threw me off the bus.
I was so angry. OK, so I might have yelled
some stuff at him when he told me to get off. I
might have told him he was stupid and pathetic
and sexist and ugly. The other kids might have
5

Shadow Girl
acted like this was the funniest thing they’d ever
seen.
I stamped off down the road. I hated that
stupid bus driver. I hated those boys. I hated
them all.
I got to the end of the street and stopped. I’d
never walked home from school before. I couldn’t
remember if the bus turned left here, or right.
I turned right. I kept walking.
The road ended. Left or right? I turned
left. More streets. More houses. Dull, ordinary
streets with dull, ordinary rows of houses.
Streets that looked exactly the same as every
street near where I lived.
Another road. Left? Or right? I kept walking.
Left or right? I turned left. I kept walking. I
walked, and walked, and walked, even though I
knew it was hopeless.
I was lost.